Burn For Burn
by nericearren
Summary: The "friend zone" is Eddie's least favorite place to be-good thing he never really knows where he is with Rose.


Eddie rolled over in bed. His skin felt hot, his sheets too close and heavy for his bedroom. He held up his hand, half expecting it to glow with some inhuman light, but it was a dark mass against the soft light emenating from behind the filmy curtains covering his window.

He closed his eyes, but his brain was buzzing. He was _so_ uncomfortable. He'd already stripped down to just jeans, but he was seriously considering going nude.

There was a loud bang.

Eddie shot upright, muscles taut, as if that was precisely the signal his body had been waiting for, and was halfway to the door before his mind processed what his feet were doing. He flung open his door, catching sight of Gar and Raven ducking into the room at the far end of the hall. A flowerpot lay overturned in their wake.

Eddie shook his head. Why on Earth was he always the one to witness other people's sexual escapades? He was almost starting to get used to it.

Since he was already up, he left his room and went down to the kitchen, intending to get himself some water-preferably to dump over his head. He couldn't shake the feeling that he was boiling under his skin, as if instead of cells and folicles he had burners and gas lights. Eddie was used to feeling like a human stove, but that was before. He was all human now; that part of him should be gone.

He stopped by the bathroom to check his temperature-98.9, only barely above normal. He wasn't running a fever.

The kitchen felt cooler, at least, the tile under his bare feet almost cold as he padded softly in, flicking on the light and hoping he wouldn't wake up anybody else. It was September, but the thermometer read over 80 degrees when he checked it. Gar must have turned it up, missing the tropical climates of his childhood.

Eddie enjoyed a good heatwave himself, but that was just too much. Praying that nobody would crap on him for messing with the temp controls, he turned the heat down to a more reasonable 65 before pivoting back to face the kitchen.

Rose smirked at him from her spot on the counter, as if she'd just been waiting for him to notice her. She held up her tumbler- "Cheers, to the children of the damned."-and downed the amber contents of the glass as if it was going to save her life.

"Thanks for the warning." Eddie griped, pouring himself a cup of water from the fridge. It wasn't nearly cold enough-he took some ice cubes from the dispenser and rubbed them against his skin.

Rose frowned. She was dressed in a baggy t-shirt and flannel shorts that had Hello Kitty patterns all over them. Eddie suspected she'd swiped them from a roommate. He couldn't really see her owning anything so pink, or friendly. "What's wrong with you?"

"It's nice to see you, too. How've you been in the past three months that no one's heard from you? I'm doing fine, thanks. Just a little hot." Eddie popped the ice cubes into his mouth, one by one, like candy.

Rose looked away. She had the good grace, at least, to appear chastised. "I needed to clear my head." Her voice came out husky, and she cleared her throat with apparent impatience. "I felt pretty shitty about . . . well, everything. Me. I could hardly bear to look at myself, and I . . . well, I couldn't see why you'd feel any different."

Eddie set his cup on the nearest counter. Rose's presence had startled him, but not nearly as much as her words. He never really believed that she cared much about what he thought, especially not about her-Rose didn't care what anybody thought about her.

"That would never happen." He took a step towards her, and folded his arms so that he wasn't tempted to touch her. "Rose, I . . . I can't imagine what you've been through, honestly, in the past few years-I know you feel like you ruin everything, but that isn't true." The folded arms didn't help. He unwound himself and stepped forwards again, catching her hand with both of his. "You haven't ruined me."

She cocked an eyebrow. "Give it time. You'll regret we were ever friends."

"Believe me, even if I wanted to, I couldn't." The words he wanted to say didn't come out the way he wanted them to. They twisted themselves into something a friend would say, because she had said they were friends, and she had said it in the innocent way that girls did when they meant that they would only ever be friends. He smiled, instead, and forced himself to move on to lighter topics. "How about we go and play a video game or something? Now that BB's . . . occupied, and not hogging the controllers?"

Eddie expected her to agree, but she shook her head, wrapping her arms around herself. "Had more than enough of violence for this lifetime, kid."

"Well . . .?" He couldn't keep the questioning note from his voice. "What do you want to do?"

Rose threw her arms around his neck, pressing her face against its side. Her breath smelled like whisky. "Let's go to your room. Talk. Maybe I won't have so many nightmares then."

Eddie lifted her without effort, ignoring the way his heart studded when he did. She needed a friend, not a moony, lovesick idiot. And he always put what she needed first. It wasn't even a question. "I've been told," he said, making his way back down the hall, "that my face breeds nightmares."

It worked. She laughed, pulling back from him. Her face was inches from his, and he studied her in his periphrials before he plunked her down. "Okay, you can walk from here. I don't want anyone getting any wrong ideas."

"It's four in the morning. No one's awake."

Eddie pointing down the hall, at Beast Boy's bedroom. "Let me tell you, sweetheart, they _definitely_ are."

Rose raised her eyebrows, backing into his room. "Ooh, gossip. Dish, dish."

She had a way of mocking normal conversation, as if she couldn't possibly imagine why any of their teammates lives was of interest to her. Whenever he tried to bring someone else into the conversation, she deflected the topic back to neutral zone-sports, fighting, the world. Anything but discussing their fellow human beings.

Rose fell back onto his bed, throwing her arms out and up, as if she could grab the twisting desert mural he'd painted on the ceiling. "It's been a looong night."

Eddie flopped down next to her, close enough that he could see the strands of hair that tangled in her eyepatch. Without preamble, he slid it off, freeing the silver threads.

"That was uncalled for." Rose said, taking the patch from him, but not slipping it back on. Her left eyelid was cleaved neatly in two, scarred over and joined sloppily. The scar ran a few centimeters above and below her eye socket, and Eddie shuddered every time he thought of her driving a blade into it. He knew Rose was crazy-he just hated to be reminded of how crazy she could be.

He took her hand, winding their fingers together as if he could keep her with him by contact alone. "You have nothing to be ashamed of."

She turned her head to face him, her one blue eye clear. "I have _everything_ to be ashamed of."

"You could at least tell me that you're free of it."

"The epinephrine? Yes. The lasting guilt of knowing that I once more failed anybody stupid enough to put their trust in me? Never."

"You just called me stupid." Eddie accused. Her eye sparked, but she didn't comment. She called him stupid a lot. She probably figured that one more time couldn't kill him.

"You should stop this." Rose said, softly, and his heart stilled. He let go of her hand, deliberately putting space between them.

"Stop trying to save me." she went on, as if she hadn't even noticed his movements. She probably hadn't. For Rose, bodies were meant to touch. Physical contact meant almost nothing to her, especially after everything she'd been through. She saw her body as a tool, a weapon, and he hated it. He hated that she'd given up trying to save herself, be a normal girl.

"I will _never_ stop trying to save you. Especially from yourself." Eddie said, with feeling. "Not until my dying day. I will probably even come to you from beyond the grave to talk you out of whatever stupid idea you've come up with next."

"Probably suicide."

"What?!" He jolted upright. Rose sat up with him.

"Suicide." she repeated. "The stupid idea would probably be that, because I'd kill myself in a world without you."

"Do no," Eddie said emphatically, "do not _ever_ say that in front of me again. _Ever_."

"It was supposed to be a complement." Rose said wryly.

He looked at her, glaring. She was smirking again. Making fun of him. "Rose!"

She tried to placate him, laying a hand on his shoulder, but he shrugged her away. "It's not funny!"

She caught his arms. "Hey, chill out. I don't do grave situations, you know that."

"I hate that." he muttered, but her fingers were on his lips and he didn't really mean it. "One day-"

"Not today," she murmured, her forehead brushing his. "We can natter all day about my problems and yours and whatever else under the sun you want, but, please, not today."

She kissed him, her lips cool against his burning skin.

"Yeah." Eddie agreed. "'Not today' sounds fine with me."


End file.
